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Byline Times can reveal that 136 Reform UK candidates are raising money from a crowdfunding platform that allows donors to keep their address secret and donate from abroad.
GoFundMe states that candidates using its platform to fundraise are responsible for contacting donors to obtain the information they need to check if a donation is legal.
But only 21 out of the 157 Reform candidates using it make clear that they need additional details from donors on their fundraising pages or that they will vet donations.
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Reform candidates have raised £99,730 on the platform at the time of writing, of which £82,065 has come from fundraisers without the necessary disclaimers.
GoFundMe said that it directs all candidates to the Electoral Commission’s rules when they register and told Byline Times that it is “important candidates fully understand the rules”.
“It is the candidate’s responsibility to collect required donor information,” it said. “We are able to pass on some information required by the Electoral Commission, collected during the donation process, and we can refund donations that can’t be verified.”
The elections watchdog requires candidates to state on their fundraising pages that they will check if donations are from a permissible source – someone who is listed on the electoral register or a company registered in the UK.
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Candidates must return donations if they are anonymous or if they don’t know the identity of the donor, under Electoral Commission rules.
In 2019, a probe by the watchdog found that Reform – then named the Brexit Party – had “a high and ongoing risk” of impermissible donations due to its online funding system.
The investigation came after concerns were raised that the party could be in breach of electoral law by allowing multiple donations potentially from outside of the UK. Former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned at the time that “democracy is undermined when we have undeclared, unreported, untraceable payments being made to the Brexit Party”.
The party said that no rules were broken at the time and pledged to “embrace” recommendations on checking donors.
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More than a dozen of the Reform candidates fundraising on GoFundMe have also been reported to have made offensive or inappropriate comments on social media.
They include Grant StClair-Armstrong, the former candidate for North West Essex, who resigned after he was found to have written blog posts containing jokes using racial slurs. StClair-Armstrong raised £700 on the platform. Reform did not respond when asked if the funds will be returned.
Steve Beatty, the party’s candidate in Didcot and Wantage, who was reported to be Facebook ‘friends’ with a fascist leader, still has a live fundraiser on the platform and has secured £1,105.
Jack Aaron, the Reform candidate for Welwyn Hatfield, continues to fundraise on the platform despite reportedly claiming that Adolf Hitler was “brilliant” at inspiring people into action.
Ken Ferguson, the Reform candidate for Wirral West, has raised £2,745 on the platform, of which £2,500 has come from a single anonymous donation. Ferguson was reported to have previously liked an ‘anti-vax’ message on social media, as well as an Islamophobic tweet joking that Muslim men married 12 year olds, and a post denying climate change. He is one of eight Reform candidates who received individual donations of more than £1,000 but failed to include any disclaimers about vetting of donations.
One Reform candidate claimed on their fundraising page that “as a new political party we don’t have millionaire donors” – despite the party counting several billionaires and millionaires as donors.
Another claimed that Reform “does not have wealthy backing from businesses like the Tories” – despite the party having received more than £2 million from registered companies, according to the Electoral Commission.
Five Labour candidates appeared to be using the platform to fundraise and, of those, only two included the necessary disclaimers. The platform does not appear to have been used by any Conservative candidates.
The fundraising issue comes after a Channel 4 undercover investigation last Thursday caught Reform activists making racist and Islamophobic comments – including a remark about using people arriving by boat for “target practice” – and an apparent admission that the party has breached the local electoral campaign spending limit in Nigel Farage‘s Clacton seat.
It also follows a number of Byline Times stories on party members, some of which have led to candidates being dropped.
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GoFundMe told Byline Times: “It is the candidate’s responsibility to collect required donor information, as well as for contacting us to refund disallowable donations that don’t have the required information.”
After elections, candidates must submit their donation reports to the local returning officer. If a candidate had accepted an impermissible donation, it would be a matter for the police to consider.
The Electoral Commission told Byline Times that it is “important that candidates comply with permissibility rules” and ensure “the permissibility of all donations over £50”.
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“As our guidance says, candidates should ensure that any crowdfunding webpage they are using contains information that explains that permissibility checks will be undertaken in compliance with the law and that information about donations, including donor details may be published,” it added.
While it is the “responsibility of candidates to ensure they are meeting their financial reporting obligations”, it has reached out to crowdfunding sites to “outline what information candidates need to collect”.
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Just over a dozen Reform UK candidates are also using the website Crowdfunder for their election campaigns. Only two include a disclaimer stating that donations will be vetted. The platform requires all donors to provide a full address, unlike GoFundMe.
Byline Times identified six Labour candidates using Crowdfunder, of which four had included a disclaimer in their pages. No Conservative candidates appeared to be using it.
Reform and Labour did not respond to requests for comment.